The Bleak and The Pearl [SoloDark]: Intermission 1, The Monolith of the Cyclops Overview

The "Monolith of the Cyclops" will be something of the hub dungeon // wrap-around story for a few sessions in my SoloDark campaign: The Bleak the Pearl. I've dropped bits and dribbles here or there in the text already shared but the idea is that this dungeon (the "monolith" moniker makes no sense but it also sets a mood so I kept it, it was just randomly rolled as a title) is a mystical network of tunnels whose layout and composition were originally designed to channel energy into the "Lighthouse." The Lighthouse which is used to the keep The Bleak at bay and to allow humanity to have a stronghold against the tide. Lately, the Light is failing and so The Bleak threatens to overrun the last great uncorrupted city...

And there are forces in the city that considers the fall of the Light to be a useful profit making opportunity. 

The map being used is The Halls of Amon-Gorloth II by Dyson Logos. I chose this one because it is big but not too unwieldly. It feels the right size to be a network covering the underground of what was essentially a "border city."  It has some neat and varied features. And, frankly, it just sparked joy. 

The plan is to split it into rough quadrants and to give each quadrant its own encounter table and to give each one it's own "fuelstone" (the mystical statues used to channel the energy towards the cyclops which then powers the Lighthouse). 

The four "flavors" are just to make it a bit varied but also to give me some experience in building up reasonable encounter lists for ShadowDark and to try out a few different enemy types.

• Northeast: Marine/Sea Monsters + Slimes. This section will be flooded by sea water coming in from the large north-east entrance and have several rooms underwater with some care being spent to drain them using the resources and gadgets of the Lighthouse Keepers. The creatures here will be a mixture of fishy (Fishfolk, Saltwater Crocodiles, etc) and slimy (Black Puddings, etc). 
• Southeast: Giant Insects and more Fungal Types. This section will have some of the icky from the first (so slimes are likely to repeat but I'll toss in some mushroomy things) but will focus more on insects and insect type enemies. There will be giant cockroaches. A lot of giant cockroaches.
• Southwest: Automatons, Golems, and Plant Types. This section will more "mechanical" with automatons and magical armor type enemies and I want to try and work in some plants and such, possibly created more on the fly with the creature generation rules. I'll hold off any future predictions since I'll need to scale this to something more level appropriate but golems and such will make an appearance. 
• Northwest: Humans, Rats, and "Slum" enemies. will have some some human and various "fantasy slum" style encounters. A thieves guild setting up shop. Maybe some classic giant rats and such. 

The characters will have a rough map and a rough location of the five fuelstones. One in each quadrant plus the main "eye" which is the large statue in the lower left. Not necessarily a perfect map, and one that was made roughly 300 years ago but I'll dial out some of the "which way to go" for this one to stop it from taking even longer. As I go, I'll do something like roll a d20 per room/section and a roll of 20 (or maybe 19-20...or make it so each roll counts "down"...I like that, eventually there *will* be paths up) will indicate there is a passage up to the city of Grunce, above. 

The idea will be they will need to clear and purify the whole map before they are done, but as they go other adventures will crop based on various needs. They will extend out, make base camps, spread up supply stations, and generally retake the whole complex over several weeks or months in game time. Also retaking the city in the process.

Besides that, I will use the standard ShadowDark content generation d10 tables blended in with some of Philip Reed's ShadowSpark cards, bits of a couple of other oracles, etc. The first quadrant, the NE/Sea-Themed one will have no boss monster. The other quadrants will likely have a boss monster set to the current level the adventurers are at. 

Once this is done, they will likely be level 6 or 7 and ready to venture deeper into the Bleak for a few hexcrawls and a build up to something like a final battle. If paced correctly it should give me plenty of experience with most of the elements available to explore in ShadowDark.

Part 7 will begin the actual delve where they work on reclaiming the first fuelstone (they already have the Marius Diadem) and cleaning out and confirming the next fuelstone which will launch on finding the relic they need to power it).